As an omnichannel retailer, you are probably offering your products to shoppers both online and in brick-and-mortar stores. And, like most retailers, you are no doubt collecting online data and running detailed website analytics that help you track preferred products, pricing, shopper behavior, ratings, and so on.

But are you able to gather these same detailed metrics in your physical store, telling you why shoppers choose your store over your competitor’s? How to create a better experience on the floor? Or optimize staffing? Most importantly, are they helping you increase sales?

Until now, the answer to these questions has been “No,” simply because the technologies to gather such metrics weren’t available. It hasn’t been until now, the era of the Internet of Everything, when edge computing is available to gather and analyze the data that gives you a 360-degree view of your store.

Studies show that in-store analytics is a key area of innovation, which may allow retailers to gain up to 11 percent in value. Today’s in-store analytics tools should be able to do three things:

Integrate data from multiple services

Automate data collection processes

Analyze data to identify actionable insights

With these capabilities available, you can use the power of your investments in mobile technology, social media, and in-store applications to collect – and understand – more and more customer information.

Last week I was in Orlando attending NCR’s Synergy Conference, which, this year focused on “Inspired Commerce.” At the show I heard a lot of dialog with retailers and technology partners about how the Internet of Things and the integrated use of mobility in our day-to-day lives is changing how retailers engage with consumers. I addressed this topic in my session at the show, but wanted to mention a few highlights in hindsight.

First, the use of mobile devices during the shopping journey is no longer for millenials and early adopters only. They are certainly the heaviest users, but across the board in the US, 55% of shoppers are making use of retailer-specific applications, and 34% are using independent shopping apps such as Groupon, Zulily, etc. More than 40% of consumers want to receive their loyalty points/perks and discounts in real time, while shopping in the store, vs. receiving the same information in snail mail or in email.

Second, mobile is becoming integral to the shopping process. Retailers are facing demands for greater convenience, transparency, and interactivity with their consumer base that would have been unimaginable even a decade ago. (As a side note, this is extending into other industries as well, such as healthcare and financial services.) Consumer expectations are evolving, and with this, retailers need to be able to offer new and effective engagement opportunities with their brand.

Other disruptors include fast-changing technologies such as social media use (not just Facebook and Twitter, but now Pinterest and Instagram) and the need to aggregate social sentiment data; unstructured data such as photos, posts, Tweets; and structured data coming from legacy systems such as CRM, SCM, and POS to make real-time decisions at the edge of the network – in the store or online where the rubber meets the road.

So – high volumes of structured and unstructured data, exponentially growing sophisticated consumer demands, and the growing use of mobile devices in the shopping journey. How does the retailer leverage all of these opportunities to make the most of this evolution?

With billions of connections, sensors and devices lighting up the Internet of Things, the aggregation of structured and unstructured data to deliver real-time analytics on mobile devices for store associates and mobile engagement via apps aimed at consumers, the opportunities are endless. Retailers that can deliver hyper-relevance – which, according to Cisco’s research, is increasingly what consumers prefer during the shopping process – will be the ones who stand out. Hyper-relevance delivers to me, the consumer, what I want, when and how I want it, in the context where I am at that particular moment.

To succeed in this new paradigm, retailers must earn consumers’ trust and deliver consistently as a brand to get access to the data that lets them provide a truly relevant real-time experience. Once consumers are willing to share a certain amount of personal data – at Cisco, we call this the “trust cliff” – retailers can use real-time analytics to turn that data into actionable insights.

We have identified three key attributes that retailers must possess to deliver hyper-relevance and build a dynamic infrastructure and processes:

Hyper-aware: By implementing and automating edge technologies such as sensors, cameras, beacons, and RFID tags, retailers can capture value from the intelligence and automation that is now available to them. This is the way to begin to gain true visibility into what the customer is experiencing in the store, how they are dwelling in the store, where they need help with the shopping process.

Predictive: By overlaying intelligence and analytics on top of these edge technologies, retailers can gain real-time anticipatory insight into what is happening, what to expect, and how to meet customers’ real-time needs. If retailers can more systematically determine peak timeframes and loyal customers’ shopping patterns, they can anticipate the staffing needs to speed up the shopping process and assist customers through the checkout process faster.

Agile: Agile, solid infrastructures, adaptive business processes, and associate training capabilities are critical to being able to deliver the kinds of dynamic experiences discussed here. When business processes can change dynamically and associates trained to respond and do what’s best for the customer, all while leveraging technology and insights gained from integrated systems, the customers’ shopping experience can delivered in an excellent manner.

This is obviously not as easy as it sounds. Implementing a hyper-aware, predictive, and agile network to respond to your customer demands is very difficult. We in the Cisco Business Transformation Team work with customers to help them explore where they are today and where they want to take their business in the future, and work arm-in-arm with them to look at what it would take to get from where they are today to this desired future state.

We recommend the following steps:

Forget everything you thought you knew about the digital consumer – all the old paradigms are melting away and “segmentation” no longer applies

Go to the edge for visibility into what customers are experiencing at that moment

Build a dynamic infrastructure and create agile processes that to support the customer experience

Develop new business models that drive innovation and enable hyper-relevance

If you would like to download the white paper from Cisco Consulting Services that I’ve referenced, please click here.

Many of you know about the Cisco Secure Ops Solution that was announced in 2014, and that it has already been adopted by Shell to secure the company’s critical infrastructure, but may not have seen a demonstration or talked with a Cisco subject matter expert about it.

Cisco Live, San Diego, CA, USA

Well, here’s your chance. We have arranged for a booth in the industrial vertical area at the World of Solutions at Cisco Live in San Diego to show just that. We’re pleased to be accompanied by one of Cisco’s security partners to show new features and functionality that takes Secure Ops even deeper into the cybersecurity protection and surveillance arenas.

The Cybersecurity space is getting more and more alarming every day. As my colleague Peter Granger notes, we have gone from the quaint world of Sherlock Holmes…

Sherlock Holmes: I didn’t really ask, Dr. Franklyn, but what exactly do you do here?

Dr. Franklyn: Oh, Mr. Holmes, I’d love to tell you. But then of course, I’d have to kill you.

Sherlock Holmes: That would be tremendously ambitious of you.

…past the pseudo-high-tech world of James bond and closer to a more modern world reminiscent of Kiefer Sutherland’s character Jack Bauer in the TV series ’24’. Today’s Cyber attacks are not just disgruntled employees or simple mischief makers (although that’s bad enough), but can be carried out by powerful crime syndicates and hostile governments.

Now more and more attacks are becoming visible and reported (e.g. Stuxnet like ‘Havex’ malware strikes European SCADA Systems – June 2014) and whether they are a terrorist attack such as the data destruction attacks on Saudi Aramco and on Qatar’s RasGas gas company in 2012 or unintentional (the vast majority of reported cyber incidents are ‘accidental in nature’ as reported by the Repository of Industrial security incidents, 2011), billions of dollars are lost every year because of them. Night Dragon, Shamoon, Flame, and Duqu have joined Stuxnet in the past few years and more will come.

A study by Fox-IT reported that 60 percent of oil and gas companies do not have a cybersecurity incident response plan. In addition, only 11 percent are fully confident that they can address a cybersecurity breach appropriately. Twenty-three percent admitted that they are not actively monitoring their network for potential intrusions.

And, of course, you can also visit us Cisco Live: there you’ll see how the Cisco Secure Ops Solution is relevant to many industries and is helping tackle our customers’ security challenges. A combination of technology, software and services expertise, Secure Ops Solution can help you increase your security response levels significantly – before, during and after an attack, across the entire attack continuum.

I’ve just returned from CERAWeek in Houston—an international event that could be described as “Davos for the energy industry.” It’s a gathering of the power elite, including industry, finance, technology, and government leaders from around the globe. For me, it was the perfect sensing post for all the angst and opportunity that pervades the industry today.

It was my privilege to participate in a panel on “Leveraging Operational Excellence to Drive Margin Expansion”—a key concern of oil and gas (O&G) executives following the crash in oil prices. Too often in previous downturns, companies have relied heavily on deep cost cuts—including massive layoffs and cancelled projects—to keep margins afloat. But this time seems different. There is general agreement in the industry that we will not be returning to $100-a-barrel oil prices any time soon. So it’s time for more than a course correction. It’s time for digital transformation. Digital transformation will drive operational excellence and, yes, margin expansion.

During my talk last week, I shared highlights from a new Cisco study discussing the new reality in O&G and the opportunity for digital transformation through the Internet of Everything (IoE)—the networked connection of people, process, data, and things. Key findings include:

“Operational efficiency of existing projects” and “maintenance of assets and infrastructure” will be the top two areas of increased investment over the next 24 months.

Business transformation—including breaking down organizational silos and converging IT and OT people, processes, and technologies—is essential for digital transformation. According to Cisco’s study, 59 percent of respondents do not believe their IT and OT organizations are aligned.

Companies that transform will have a significant bottom-line impact. Analysis by Cisco Consulting Services shows that by implementing a range of IoE-empowered solutions, oil and gas companies can capture their share of $600 billion of Value at Stake between 2016 and 2025. For a $50 billion firm, this translates into an 11 percent bottom-line (EBIT) improvement.

Cisco can help O&G companies in their journey to digital transformation through the investments we have made in key technologies—such as analytics, data, sensors, wireless, and mesh—and through solutions developed with key partners. For example:

Secure Operations—Industrial cybersecurity solutions improve security and risk management to combat new and evolving cyber security threats, specifically in the process control domain. A good example is a project for Royal Dutch Shell that provides remote proactive monitoring and SLA-driven management of security, applications, and infrastructure. We are working with industrial control system delivery partners such as Yokogawa Electric and Rockwell Automation to support this solution, which Shell plans to deploy at all upstream, downstream, and lubricant sites.

When the price of oil stood at more than $100 per barrel, the need for oil and gas companies to improve operational efficiencies was primarily driven by the competitive marketplace—and many firms took no action at all. Read More »

The key to retail today is customer understanding —where each customer stands on his or her personal shopping journey, whether in-store or out. Retailers must “know” each shopper as never before. And they must offer the kinds of contextual, personally relevant experiences that will optimize their merchandise mix, create faster inventory turns, and drive greater customer engagement.

After all, the typical customer today is mobile, connected, and has heightened expectations. Many are accustomed to a deeper level of real-time interaction from innovative online retailers than from traditional brick-and-mortar stores.

Yet, as a recent Cisco study revealed, offline retailers – or retailers that combine on and offline capabilities – have their own unique advantages – if they step up to the opportunities of the Internet of Everything (IoE) economy. By blending the benefits of the physical store — such as the ability to touch, compare, and try on products — with the benefits of the virtual world, retailers can create a new value proposition that can’t be matched by their online-only competitors. In the process, they not only drive their own industry’s disruption but challenge for market leadership.

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